Chapter 49: Within the Five Percent

This chapter includes unseen violence against preschool-aged children.
The result is visible in the chapter, not the action.
Reader discretion is advised.

15 July 2000 – Wellington Circle, Medford, Massachusetts

“McGregor’s lucky that ceiling didn’t cave in while he slept in his bunk three nights ago,” Shawna commented while they waited for their coffee order.

She and Jeff were posting at Wellington Circle, a major intersection of state routes in Medford. Wellington was a favorite place for Brophy to have ambulances cover multiple cities, or ‘post,’ since it was convenient to three other municipal contracts. Paramedic 31 currently covered four cities: Medford, Melrose, Malden, and Brophy’s newest contract, Everett. The crews didn’t mind posting at Wellington Circle because it boasted a twenty-four-hour coffee shop with clean bathrooms.

“I know,” Jeff replied. “Being covered in drop-ceiling tiles and rainwater is not the way to wake up. We needed the rain but not that frog-strangler we got that night.”

“‘Frog-strangler?’”

“Um, gully-washer?”

“Oh, okay, I’ve heard that term.”

“Sorry, the locals near Benning and Bragg used to use that, so I must have picked it up when I was in the Army. But, on the bright side, now we know what was causing your runny noses for the past year.”

On the Tuesday overnight shift, a violent rainstorm dropped nearly three inches of rain on Medford and the other cities just north of Boston. Unfortunately, the slow leak in Medford Station 5’s roof hadn’t held up to the increased water pressure. Instead, it allowed rain to enter and soak the ceiling of the Brophy EMS quarters built in the apparatus bay, causing its collapse. The previous slow leak hadn’t been enough to cause a collapse, but it did allow black mold to grow inside the walls of the EMS room.

“Well, they say it’ll only take a week or so to build us a new room,” Shawna commented. “It was cool of the guys at Station Five to let our overnight crews crash in the recliners until it’s complete.”

“The extra hour Brophy’s paying us to be based out of Malden and drive over to Medford, for now, is cool, too.”

The woman behind the counter handed them their iced coffees with her usual bright smile.

“Thanks, Jasmine,” Jeff said, waving off Shawna’s offered payment. “I got this one,” he told his partner while handing Jasmine a ten-dollar bill. Jeff dropped the coins and the dollar bill from the change in the tip cup while pocketing the five.

“Thanks, guys!” Jasmine said in response to the tip. The young mother’s smile always brightened people’s days when they came in.

“You have a good day, Jasmine,” Jeff smiled back.

“I still can’t believe you ordered an iced coffee!” Shawna exclaimed as they walked back to their truck. “You never drink iced coffee!”

“I rarely do,” Jeff admitted. “I don’t like chewing my coffee, but now that they do this ‘melted sugar’ thing...”

Shawna and Jeff walked back to P-31 and unlocked it. They reclined in their respective seats after rolling down the front doors’ windows and propped their feet on the window frames.

“Can you imagine working in an office?” Shawna asked from the driver’s seat.

“Nope,” Jeff replied.

It is said that public safety work is ninety-five percent boredom mixed with five percent sheer terror. Jeff was content to be bored today. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on his face. Eighty-three degrees, crystal-clear blue skies, a light breeze, and the calls are all going to other units so far today. Perfect.

‘We found a parking spot under a tree, too,’ Jeff thought.

All of that should have been a clue that their day was about to go to shit.

“Operations to Paramedic Thirty-one?”

Until they moved back into Station Five, Brophy’s dispatch center would assign the calls to Medford A-1. Shawna picked up the microphone.

“Thirty-one, Wellington Circle,” she answered, giving their current location.

“Thirty-one, in Medford, twenty-eight hundred Mystic Valley Parkway, apartment two-fifteen. Two-eight-zero-zero Mystic Valley Parkway, apartment two-one-five, Medford, for the pediatric altered mental status.”

“At least we’re close...” Jeff muttered while he pulled his legs into the truck and closed his door.

“Thirty-one has twenty-eight hundred Mystic Valley Parkway, apartment two-fifteen, Medford,” Shawna acknowledged.

Shawna closed her door as she started the truck, cranking the a/c as the windows rolled up. Jeff hit the emergency master switch, activating the lights while he signed on with Medford Fire Alarm for the response. Three minutes later, Paramedic 31 rocked as it entered the Mystic River Apartments complex.

“Thirty-one, we’re going out,” Shawna said to dispatch when they pulled up to the building.

“Thirty-one. Apartment two-one-five.”

Jeff pulled on his gloves while they parked along the curb. He grabbed the portable radio, exited the cab of the truck, and switched the radio to the Medford Fire Alarm frequency. Jeff piled their equipment onto the man-and-a-half stretcher before Shawna pulled it out of the truck. They made their way to the door of the building, wedging the door open for the fire department personnel responding behind them. The elevator was working today, and they only waited two minutes for it to arrive. Shawna and Jeff had to wait another minute for the occupants to exit.

“What’s going on?” an exiting resident asked while they steered the stretcher into the small space.

“Ambulance call,” Jeff replied in a disinterested voice.

“I know that,” the man answered. “What’s the emergency?”

“Sorry, Sir. We can’t tell you,” Jeff said as they finished fitting the stretcher into the elevator.

“Huh?” the man asked, confused. “Hey, I live here!” he declared. “I have a right to know!”

“No, Sir, you don’t,” Jeff replied. “Your neighbors all have a right to privacy.” He pushed the ‘door close’ button over and over.

“What? So you’re not going to tell me?”

“Exactly,” Jeff confirmed while the doors closed.

“What a Richard...” Shawna muttered, shaking her head as the elevator rose.

They maneuvered the stretcher out of the elevator and down the hall to apartment two-fifteen on the second floor. They shared a chuckle about the man in the lobby. A man opened the door to the apartment for them, and they entered, still shaking their heads. They stopped laughing when they walked into the apartment and took in the scene in the front room.

They didn’t have one pediatric patient; they had two. Both children were young girls under five years old, both were unconscious, and both had visible marks on their faces. Shawna and Jeff moved, now all business. Jeff knelt next to the older girl and keyed the microphone of the portable radio.

“A-One to Fire Alarm? Who’s coming to twenty-eight hundred Mystic Valley, apartment two-fifteen?”

“A-One, this is Engine Five.”

Jeff recognized the voice from the radio as Captain Nick DeCosta of Engine 5, someone he’d known since he started working in Medford.

‘Thank God,’ Jeff thought. “Engine Five, expedite. We have two pediatric patients, and both are unconscious.”

“Engine Five, roger.”

In reality, a fifteen- to twenty-ton fire engine is not going to start driving faster when you tell them to ‘step it up.’ They’re already driving as fast as they safely can. There are too many reasons why they can’t just floor the accelerator. Instead, what they will do is move more quickly than usual once they arrive on scene.

“What happened?” Jeff asked the man who let them in.

“I dunno,” the man replied. “They fell while they played a little while ago. I think they hit their heads. They were acting funny after that, tired, so I called 9-1-1. They collapsed just before you got here. I called their mother, too.”

Those working in EMS can be suspicious people, thanks to the nature of their job. They are trained to look for problems and to keep looking if they don’t find any. They can also tell when someone gives them a false story. This was one such time. Jeff kept his suspicions to himself. Then, glancing at Shawna, she gave him a look that told him she was thinking along the same lines.

Jeff checked his patient’s pulse – or he tried to. As soon as Jeff touched the girl, her back arched, her arms extended, her wrists curled outward, and her toes pointed. A reaction called ‘decerebrate posturing.’

‘Oh, shit.’

Posturing is a sign of a brain injury. It indicates that the brain is trying to squeeze itself through the hole at the bottom of the skull as it swells. When a person displays decerebrate posturing, it’s a late sign of injury, and outcomes in those cases are not good. Jeff noted his patient’s pulse was slow, thready. Her breathing was becoming irregular. When Jeff checked, her pupils were unequal and sluggish.

‘Ohshitohshitohshit.’

“Cuff!” he barked to Shawna, and she tossed the pediatric blood pressure cuff to him. His patient’s pressure was elevated. They needed to go. NOW.

“Level One, decerebrate posturing. What do you have?” Jeff asked his partner.

“Level Two, stable,” Shawna answered.

“Does yours need O2?”

“Sat’s fine, and her breathing is regular,” Shawna answered, indicating that her patient’s oxygen level was within normal limits. “I can wait till we’re in the truck. Take it.”

Hearing Shawna’s answer, Jeff grabbed the oxygen bag. Then, he placed his patient on one hundred percent oxygen via a face mask with practiced moves. Jeff spoke to the man again.

“Are you dad?”

“No, I’m Jasmine’s boyfriend. Their mom’s boyfriend.”

‘Jasmine? Please, no!’

“Where’s she?”

“At work. The coffee shop in Wellington Circle.”

‘Shit! These are Jasmine’s girls! No, no, NO!’

“Do you know their names, ages, dates of birth? Stuff like that?”

“Some of it.”

“Write down what you know, please?”

Jeff turned back to his patient and performed a head-to-toe exam, looking for more injuries. He cataloged the ones he found: tenderness of the scalp, facial fractures and bruising, marks on her face and chest, broken ribs, and a rigid abdomen. On the outside, Jeff was calm and controlled. But, deep inside of him, a part of him seethed.

The man handed him a piece of paper with the information Jeff requested. Though his patient was his focus, Jeff noted scrapes on the man’s knuckles. The man also wore a ring on one hand, which matched many marks on his patient’s face and torso.

‘Goddammit!’ Jeff nodded as he took the paper and keyed his radio mic again. “A-One to Engine Five?”

“Go, A-One. We’re about three out.”

“Cap, on arrival, we’ll need the pedi board, the KED, and our collar bag. Call Blue and invite him to the party. One-and-one, minimum. The folks from the back hall here and at the General, too. We’ll need a driver.”

“On it, A-One. Less than two.”

Jeff didn’t acknowledge. Nick would know what his message meant and that he would be busy. Jeff found a vein on his patient’s right arm that he could thread an IV catheter into. Once that IV was secure, he moved to her left side to repeat the procedure. Jeff heard a welcome call over the radio while securing the second IV.

“Engine Five’s arriving, Fire Alarm.”

“What do you need, Jeff?” Nick DeCosta asked, stepping into the scene two minutes later, followed by his crew.

“Pedi board and collar. Give the KED and a collar to Shawna. Load the bags onto our stretcher and take everything to the ambulance? We’ll carry the girls down the stairs. We’re out of here as soon as they’re immobilized, and I don’t want to wait for an elevator. Who’s gonna drive our truck?”

“Stan.” Stan Williams was Nick’s most experienced firefighter. “He’s already in the driver’s seat.” Jeff nodded in acknowledgment.

Both members of Paramedic 31 finished readying their respective patients for transport as a sergeant and two officers from the Medford Police Department appeared in the doorway. ‘Blue’ had arrived at the party. Jeff felt the boyfriend, who stood behind him despite being told multiple times to step back, stiffen when he saw law enforcement.

“Um, maybe you should wait for Jasmine to get back before you leave?” he stammered. Jeff and Shawna ignored him, as did everyone else in the room. “Hey!” the man exclaimed, trying to get Jeff’s attention. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

He got that attention, and a lot more, when he grabbed Jeff’s shoulder. People routinely exposed to emergencies can develop calm, detached, dispassionate demeanors to shield themselves from the horrors of those moments while in the middle of them.

Everyone, however, has their breaking point.

When the man touched Jeff, the locked door inside Jeff containing his rage gave way. With a growl, Jeff drove his elbow back into the man’s genitals. The man fell into the wall behind them, retching and gasping for breath.

“Nick, bags?” Jeff asked while slinging the oxygen bag across his back.

“Already outside,” the captain replied.

Scooping up his patient, Jeff stepped towards the door. Jeff looked at the MPD sergeant while pausing in the doorway.

“What?” the sergeant asked in response. “What are you looking at me for? I saw you defend yourself against a violent suspect, one who assaulted you in the course of your duties as an EMT.”

Jeff nodded at the man. “Have the detectives take pictures of his hands and meet us at Mass General. They’ll need to compare those pictures to some marks on the girls.”

Jeff stepped out of the apartment and turned down the hall. Shawna was right behind him. One of the officers followed as well to open doors if needed.

“Right!” the sergeant called after them.

Jeff and Shawna were careful not to trip with the precious cargo in their arms as they sped down the stairs. Finally, he and Shawna reached the ground floor and crossed the building’s lobby. The man from the elevator made a reappearance.

“Hey! I want to talk to you!”

“Sir, not now,” Jeff said, his voice tight, clipped.

“Yes, dammit, right now!” the man demanded, stepping between Jeff and the door.

“Sir, move out of the way!” The MPD officer started to move towards the front of the small group.

“Not until I talk to you!”

Jeff growled, dropped his free shoulder, and sent the man flying with a solid body check.

“Keep going!” the officer called as he stopped next to the man and took out his handcuffs.

Jeff crashed into the bar to open the outside door, never slowing as he left the building. At the ambulance, Engine 5’s crew helped secure the sisters – one on the stretcher, one on the bench seat in the back of the truck. Jeff made sure they had all of their equipment.

“Thanks, guys,” he called to the firefighters when they exited. They waved as Jeff pulled the back doors of the ambulance closed. “Stan?”

“Here, Jeff!” Stan Williams called from the front seat.

“We’re ready! Mass General!”

“Got it!” Stan notified Brophy and Fire Alarm of their destination and pulled away from the curb.

Jeff’s patient was getting worse. Her breathing pattern was slower, more irregular, her pupils more unequal, and her heart rate slower than when in the apartment. Jeff opened the pediatrics bag and measured his patient with a color-coded tape. He prepared the appropriate laryngoscope and endotracheal tube from the indicated colored pouch to secure his patient’s airway.

Jeff’s left hand manipulated the ‘scope, lifting his patient’s tongue while his right hand slipped in the uncuffed tube. He watched as the tube passed over the tongue and through the vocal cords. A device detected the presence of exhaled carbon dioxide from the girl’s lungs and turned from purple to yellow. While Shawna squeezed air into the girl’s lungs, Jeff used his stethoscope to listen to her chest. Hearing all the right things and none of the wrong things, Jeff wrapped tape around the tube, behind the patient’s neck, and then around the tube from the other side. He did this to secure the tube and prevent it from coming loose.

“How’s yours?” Jeff asked Shawna.

“More stable than yours: unconscious and a bruise to the cheek,” she replied as she slipped an oxygen mask onto the girl’s face. “She won’t need a tube from us.”

Jeff pulled the paper with the girls’ names from his pocket. ‘Hang on, Liliana... ’

Jeff picked up the microphone next to him.

“Boston CMED, Boston CMED, Brophy Paramedic Thirty-one calls from the Medford/Somerville line.”

“Brophy P-Thirty-one?”

“CMED, Thirty-one. Two pediatric patients, one Priority One and one Priority Two, Mass General. Trauma Alerts on both, please.”

Jeff switched to the channel specified when CMED responded. He heard the warbling tone requesting medical control from the receiving hospital.

“Uh, this is Mass General Hospital,” came the response. Unfortunately, the doctor at the other end didn’t give their last name. Jeff didn’t recognize the voice, either. Not a good start.

“Mass General, Brophy Paramedic Thirty-one, Paramedic Knox calling. Please identify yourself, Doctor.”

“Uh, this is, uh, Dr. Friedreichson.”